PESHAWAR: The government’s ban on the establishment of hide collection camps not only kept banned outfits from the activity but also dented the charities’ efforts to gain much from it.

The home and tribal affairs department had issued guidelines on Aug 8 for the collection of hides across the province.

It made it mandatory for those collecting hides to get the relevant authorities’ permission for the purpose and stopped the registered charities from setting up collection camps, making announcements from mosques, and putting up posters and banners.

In addition to this, Peshawar’s district administration also imposed Section 144 to ban setting up of camps for hide collection, use of vehicle-mounted loudspeakers, display of weapons, and installing banners and posters for the purpose for a period of six days.

A senior member of the Jamaat-i-Islami-affiliated Al-Khidmat charity said hadn’t there been any ban on the establishment of camps for hide collection, they would have definitely amassed much more.

Banned outfits didn’t carry out the activity

He said besides Al-Khidmat, the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital, Edhi Foundation and other charity organisations also used to collect most of the hides.

However, the member said the charity he worked for did collect more hides this year compared to last year.

“Last year, we had collected over 2,000 hides on Eidul Azha but this year, we managed to amass over 4,000,” he said.

Hafiz Hameedullah, president of Al-Khidmat’s Peshawar chapter, said the charity organisation collected hides through volunteers or voluntary donors.

“Our people have a great sense of charity but at the same time, the credibility of the organisation also matters,” he said.

Hafiz said around 50 per cent of hides they collected were the result of the volunteers’ efforts, while in rest of the cases, donors themselves called them for collection.

He said this time around, the authorities did earnestly implement the code of conduct including mandatory no objection from authorities and banning camps.

A representative of the Edhi Foundation told Dawn that in most cases, they relied on voluntary donors, who either left hides in their offices or called them to collect them from homes.

He said during Eid days, the organisation collected over 2,500 hides in the provincial capital, while the number was almost the same last year.

The representative of Edhi Foundation said a large number of hides they had collected decomposed due to extreme heat and humidity.

He said the prices of animal hides went down steeply this year and he also suspected hide dealers underhand tactics to be at play.

He said while the same dealers purchased hides from local prayer leaders at over Rs1000, others with large numbers were offered around half of that rate.

“Virtually, no collection activity by banned outfits was witnessed this year. It’s probably because of the authorities’ strict clampdown on these outfits’ fund raising activities,” he said.

A staff member of the Hamza Foundation welfare hospital and blood services said the ban did not affect hide collection much as the organisation didn’t set up camps for the purpose.

“We have collected around 100 hides from donors mostly living around University Town and families of patients,” he said.

The staff member, however, said too many bans on hide collection really did affect charity organisations drive.

The home department’s guidelines had declared that no one would be allowed to go from door to door and use force to collect hides, while hide collectors had to produce the government’s permission besides identity documents otherwise the law-enforcement officials can confiscate hides.

The department also said while transporting collected hides, the organisations would have to submit a plan to the administration so that security could be provided to them.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2019